user_attr Database

The user_attr database contains user and role information that supplements the passwd and shadow databases. The user_attr database contains extended user attributes such as authorizations, rights profiles, and assigned roles. The fields in the user_attr database are separated by colons, as follows:

user:qualifier:res1:res2:attr

The fields have the following meanings:

user

The name of the user or role as specified in the passwd database.

qualifier:res1:res2

These fields are reserved for future use.

attr

An optional list of semicolon-separated (;) key-value pairs that describes the security attributes to be applied when the user runs commands. The four valid keys are type, auths, profiles, and roles.

• The type keyword can be set to normal, if this account is for a normal user. The type is role if this account is for a role.

• The auths keyword specifies a comma-separated list of authorization names that are chosen from names that are defined in the auth_attr database. Authorization names can include the asterisk (*) character as a wildcard. For example, solaris.device.* means all of the Solaris device authorizations.

• The profiles keyword specifies an ordered, comma-separated list of rights profile names from the prof_attr database. The order of rights profiles works similarly to UNIX search paths. The first profile in the list that contains the command to be executed defines which (if any) security attributes are to be applied to the command.

• The roles keyword can be assigned to the user through a comma-separated list of role names. Note that roles are defined in the same user_attr database. Roles are indicated by setting the type value to role. Roles cannot be assigned to other roles.

The following example demonstrates how the Operator role is defined in a typical user_attr database. The example shows how the role is assigned to user jdoe. Roles and users are differentiated by the type keyword.

% grep operator /etc/user_attr 
jdoe::::type=normal;roles=operator
operator::::profiles=Operator;type=role